


False Starts

by Whreflections



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Episode Related, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post Think Lovely Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 07:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't the first time they've tried to start over, but this time, it's actually going to take.  It has to.  </p><p>(Or, in which Rumple really does almost give his life fighting Pan, but Henry has other ideas.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	False Starts

**Author's Note:**

> So I meant to have this fic posted...oh like, three days after Think Lovely Thoughts. x.x My life has been so full of new puppy and homework and work lately though that I've been lucky to write like a hundred words a day...
> 
> SO. Here this is, finally. I have three other OUAT fics I've been working on for longer(and a new chapter of Blood Magic to finish up), but after the idea for this came to me, I just felt compelled to write it. Hope you guys enjoy, ^^
> 
> There will be a different Rumple & Bae oneshot coming from me soon out of those other things I have that I've been working on for awhile. And by soon I hope I mean this week, not in two weeks, lmao

_Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. -Henry Ford_

_\-----------------------------------_

After 300 years of waiting and a conversation preceded by the opening of a box, they begin again like this-

Neal is bent over the railing, a little dizzy with the way his breath comes too short and fast. 

In the midst of this desperate journey through the clouds they’ve talked in a way that even in his thousand incarnations of this moment as a boy Neal had never quite dreamed they could, full of so much he’d never known.   They spoke of Pan and Henry and shadows and boxes, of fresh starts and the future they just might reach when _The Jolly Roger_ touches down in Storybrooke harbor.   

Neal’s shadow pools dark on the deck in contrast to the silvery moonlight around Rumplestiltskin’s feet, and for the first time since he was 14, the thought that they can begin again doesn’t sound quite so insane. 

Neal thinks it’s a credit to his nerves that they’ve held out pretty damn well ever since he fell away from Emma’s hand and into the world of his childhood.  He’s kept moving fast enough that he hasn’t had time to fall apart, but here he has a moment of quiet and this tentative thing between him and his father that reminds him how once he’d never felt so warm and safe as he did with Rumplestiltskin beside him.  Whatever happened later, at least he learned that feeling, once.  Henry hasn’t had time to get used to Neal’s presence, much less his love.  It’s no wonder he believed Pan, no wonder at all. 

The weight of all his history seems to close on him, a legacy of fathers who by choice or failure could never keep their sons.  He struggles to hold back the gasp that brings, tears hot against his cheeks in the chill wind as he bends over the railing far enough that his father is nothing but a dark blur in the corner of his vision.  He’s not sure he can talk about this, not now and maybe not ever if they fail, but the words start tumbling anyway, too heavy to hold.

“We can’t wake Henry; Regina tried.  She says he’s not dead yet, but what if he is?  I mean the damage seems done already, and if I’ve lost him-“

His father reaches out to him like a cat touching water, fingers ever so light as they test the surface tension.  Neal doesn’t draw away, barely holds back from leaning in.  Both hands close around his shoulders with palpable eagerness. 

“You haven’t lost him, Bae.  You won’t.  I told you, I’m not gonna let that happen.  You’ll be taking your boy home; I promise.”

Neal breaths in the heavy mist of the clouds, clings to the railing until the splinters push against the beds of his nails.  Rumplestiltskin’s hands rest on him like weights, heavy and grounding.

“And you.” 

“Hmm?”

“Emma said it to David, and I’m telling you- when we go home, we’re all going home.  Forget the goddamn prophesy; you can end Pan without going down with him.  We’ve still got the box.  I can help you this time.  Regina and Emma too.” 

There are arms against his back now, a slow press like his wrists have just grown tired of holding them up, like it isn’t a move to maximize contact.  “I’ll do what I can.”

Neal’s eyes are still burning, and the wind stings when he holds them open, spurs them to water a little more.  There’s so much of him that wants to just leave it like that and maybe he should, because his father’s hands are warm and for once the two of them are so close to what seems like solid ground, but he knows this man maybe better than any other, and he knows that wasn’t an answer.  If he held a little less hope for working this whole mess out, maybe then he’d let it go. 

“Hey.”  Neal clears his throat, hates how it doesn’t work.  His voice is still too thick.  “Tell me the truth.  You say you want to start over, want us all to be a family.”  In his mind, it was supposed to be a question.

“More than anything.” 

“Then don’t make a promise you can’t keep.  Either you say it and you mean it, or you’ve got some suicide play tucked up your sleeve, and if you do you better tell me right now.”  Because if he plans on leaving again-

Well, no.  Even if he wasn’t already worn thin, he’s not sure he could prepare for that under the best of circumstances.  All the same, he deserves to _know_. 

“Whatever I can do to save Henry and get us all home, I will.”

Even that one doesn’t sound quite like what he’s fishing for.  Still.  Neal swallows hard.  “I wanna trust you on this.  I do.”

“You can, Bae.  I promise.  I won’t let you down again.” 

\--------

Less than 24 hours beyond their time on the deck, Neal has to believe they don’t end like this-

There are a dozen ways they might yet end, and though he’s certainly got his hopes on that front, all he knows is it doesn’t fucking end like _this_ , not here in the mire of a jungle they’ve both hated all their lives.

Neal’s hands flutter ineffective across the leather on his father’s chest, uncertain and anxious because there’s no blood there to stem.  There’s no wound at all, just the hilt of the dagger laying there in the leaves next to the body of a man who in death could no longer remain a boy.  The smile that had graced his lips as he realized his magic was dissolving the blade in his chest and taking his son with him remains, his grim satisfaction as nauseating in death as it was in life. 

Over the past few days Neal’s lived so closely with fear that even his panic in this moment almost seems a distant thing, right up until Henry’s voice cuts the buzzing in his ears.

“The dagger’s just the curse, so grandpa’s gonna be ok, right?  Dad?” 

“He’s fine, Henry; he’s fine, just give me a minute, ok?”  God, he’s all over the place, voice wavering in a way even _he_ can tell is panicked desperation.  His wandering hands find Rumplestiltskin’s, and he pulls one up between both of his own, clinging.  He’s still warm, still carries a soft pulse Neal can feel beneath the pads of his fingers.  His heart skips; his hands squeeze.   “Hey, listen to me.  It’s done.  You got him.” 

The hand in his is all wrong, too limp.  Ever since he came to New York those fingers have never been quite still in his presence, always half reaching.  Neal folds them around his own, only half aware of the motion until he’s done going through it.  It doesn’t help.   Neal tightens his grip until his knuckles hurt.

“Regina,-“

“Neal, if I could do something don’t you think-“

“How about you shut up and try?”  It’s strange, dealing with her, because he didn’t live in a time that would’ve taught him to fear her.  All his knowledge, really, boils down to four things- she helped Cora try to kill his father, her magic is decently strong though weaker than Rumplestiltskin’s, she loves Henry, and despite the almost killing incident she moves around Rumple with a deference that shows a certain level of affection.  If she _can_ help him, he has to believe she will. 

She kneels readily enough across from him in the vines, her hands immediately scanning over him with a ripple of magic Neal can feel like low bass against his chest.  Three passes and nothing changes but the speed of her hands. 

Slowly, they slide down to rest against her thighs.  “I’m sorry.  He’s alive but I can’t reach him.  We have no reference for what the destruction of the dagger would do to someone tied to it, particularly for so long.  This could be a permanent curse or it could kill him.  Or, he could recover, but without more information-“

“Yeah, I got it.”  His throat is too tight, his ears still ringing.  The ambush was supposed to take five minutes.  His father was meant to be the distraction and he was meant to man the box, but Pan figured it out and that’d have been the end of all them no doubt if Rumplestiltskin’s shadow hadn’t turned up with the dagger.  It had been their salvation and it couldn’t have been planned, and still there was a part of him, small and sharp, that felt he’d once again been lied to.  “You said he’s in there; you’re sure?”

“That much I know, yes.  He’s not dead yet.”  _Yet_. 

“I asked you to tell me the truth.  This is why you gave the dagger to your shadow, isn’t it?  You had this planned all along?”  His voice cracks and he hates it, hates that he can’t stay angry but can’t get rid of it, not entirely.  There’s no single mistake to blame, here.  If he’d believed his father before, they might be home by now. 

Regina stays silent, out of respect or locked in some internal argument of her own; it’s impossible to tell.  Particularly since he won’t look up at her.  He leans closer to the ground instead, close enough to shield them both just a little from the half circle he can feel watching from behind. 

“Look, I know you can hear me, dammit, just-“  Or he can’t.  After all, Neal’s always seen the dagger as a malicious little bastard.  After all it’s done to their lives, he wouldn’t exactly be surprised if it’s taken his father down with it just far enough that nothing can reach.  He tastes blood, belated realizes he stopped  himself short only by biting down on his lip.  “I don’t care who he was; you can’t tell me his magic is stronger than you.  I don’t believe it.  You can fight this.”  So many years of hating it, and lately it seems all he can do is put his faith in magic.  Later, maybe he’ll have to figure out just what that means, but Rumplestiltskin is still, no movement even behind his eyelids, and the terror is boiling in his chest because after so much lost time, they _cannot_ end like this.  “Papa, _please_.”

There’s a gasp that sounds like Snow but could be Emma; he cares, but he can’t look away.  Not just now, not when the man before him commands all his attention.  Neal shakes him lightly, just enough to maybe jolt him a little but Rumplestiltskin’s head lolls sideways, limp as death.  The choked noise that cuts Neal’s throat on the way out doesn’t even feel like him at all; he is all over too raw.  Only hours ago he was already half in mourning for his son.  He shifts his grip to hard leather, hauls his father up to close his arms around loose limbs and a heavy head Neal guides to rest against his shoulder.  He has to be breathing but it’s too soft, Neal’s own breath too harried to let him feel it. 

He squeezes his eyes shut tight, breathes heavy until the weight in his arms grows easier to hold.  “We need to get him back home.  With everything he’s got in that shop there’s gotta be something for…whatever this is.  The last effects of the curse maybe; I don’t know.  He’ll have something for it.  He always does.” 

Flutters of movement and half heard whispers break out behind him, though he twitches still when David’s hand lands lightly on his shoulder. 

“I can help-“

“I’ve got him; thanks.”  It’s got nothing to do with the punch his jaw still feels, though if David wants to think it does he can go right ahead.  He had every right as a father to take that swing hearing under just what circumstances Neal and his daughter were separated and Neal doesn’t begrudge him that, but they aren’t exactly friends and besides, carrying his father falls under his place as a son.  Considering he might not get to hold that title very much longer, for the time being he’s gonna count it a privilege. 

Like he had a few months before, standing between his father and Cora with a sword, able to do fuck all when it came down to it though he’d been ready and willing to try.  God, was it always gonna come down to this for them?  Their history was filled by jagged lines between one crisis and another, spikes of fury and love that left Neal dizzy.  On the ship last night it had seemed they just might be leveling out. 

Neal stands slowly, his father carefully cradled against his chest.  He can feel Emma just behind his shoulder, hear the well-remembered sound of her breath.  Matching his own to hers is half instinct still, and the pause that gives him makes it easier to speak.

“We should hurry.” 

\------------

“You know, if I never have to see you dying in this bed again, it’ll be too soon.”  It’s lighter than he feels, and still he sounds like shit.  Alone, he no longer carries even the slightest pretense.  300 years down the road and he’d still sometimes kept dreaming that despite his fears one day Rumplestiltskin would sweep in and prove he’d really come to get him after all; that day finally comes and this is the one that follows it?  Forget the curse of the dagger- he’s starting to believe there’s a curse on the whole damn family. 

His father’s hand hasn’t grown any more responsive in his own, though he can’t bring himself to let it go.  He fidgets instead, grip ever shifting like it’ll make a difference, like this point of contact between them is a combination lock. 

“You know, I think we have a chance here, but I’m not sure I can forgive you if you back out on me now.  You understand?  I told you; I wanna trust you on this but I need you to come through with your side.  We had a verbal agreement.  That counts.”  His heart hammers, spurred by the inaccuracy.  Even at his most furious he’d known forgiving his father someday was a foregone conclusion.   Still, if he could hear, if Neal could give him enough reason to be awake for him to really fight this thing…

“Hey, dad.”

Neal’s hand squeezes reflexively on his father’s, though as he does he manages to turn almost smoothly to face the door.  “Hey, Henry.  Thought you guys were having some dinner?”  Emma had come and offered him some first, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of food.  Her hands on his shoulders had been more than welcome, but she’d left before he could gather the nerve to say so.  She’d asked for slow and he didn’t want to push, not even to seek her comfort. 

“We did.”  Henry shuffled in the door, hands in his pockets.  His eyes cut to Rumplestiltskin in the bunk, flickered almost as quickly to the floor at his feet.  “How is he?”

“The same.  I think he’s gonna stay like this till we can find out how to break the last ties between him and the dagger.”  For that he’d saved the hilt, just in case he needed it.  It was currently in the bag slung against the back of his chair, though he’d had a vision of it burning through the side to land hissing on the floorboards, Indiana Jones Sankara stone style. 

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”  He says it so fast, like it’s still not quick enough. 

“Hey, everything’s gonna be alright, Henry.  He’ll be ok; you’ll see.”  Maybe if he says it enough for Henry’s benefit, he’ll start to believe it too. 

“This is all my fault.”  Henry’s voice wavers like he’s been holding those words in long enough to make himself sick over them.  For that, Neal lets his father’s hand slip free so he can go to his son.  Henry folds in against him like he was waiting for this, his face buried quick into Neal’s shirt.  As old and brave as he’d done his best to act on the island, he’s all kid again now, lost and scared. 

Neal holds him close, kisses the top of his head as he fumbles for the right words.  He is still so very new at this.  “There is not a thing that happened on that island that’s your fault, Henry.  Don’t you ever think it was.” 

“If I’d listened to you guys in the cave-“

“We don’t know what would have happened then.  If you’d try to get to us Pan could’ve killed you, Henry; we don’t know, but what I _do_ know is you were the victim in all of this.  He had you kidnapped, he lied to you, gave you every reason to believe you were doin’ the right thing. “  He ruffles his fingers through Henry’s hair, slow but enough to get his attention, to make him look up.  “Pan’s the one to blame here, and if there’s anyone at fault other than him, it’s me.  I met up with your grandfather in the jungle and he told me all the plans he’d made to come and save you but I didn’t believe him.  We rescued you, and if I’d just trusted him then we might could’ve gone home a few days ago; none of this would’ve happened.  So I should be apologizing to you.  I let you both down.” 

It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, but he’s pretty sure a thousand recitations wouldn’t make it hurt any less. 

“But you came after me again.  And Pan wouldn’t have let you get away with it the first time, not if he didn’t want you to.  You didn’t have the box then, did you?”

“No.  Not yet.”

“It couldn’t be your fault then.”

“Maybe not.”

“You didn’t let me down.  I thought I remembered you, I just thought I dreamed it.  I knew if you could you’d come after me; we always find each other.  All of us.” 

Jesus, he’s cried enough in the past 24 hours that it shouldn’t come quite so easy.  He blinks away the sting in his eyes, rubs Henry’s back to distract himself.  “Thanks, Henry.” 

“I don’t think grandpa would blame you either.”

No, he probably wouldn’t.  Then again, if his recent behavior is any indication, Neal could probably push him off a cliff and he wouldn’t complain about the landing.  The thought does nothing for his nausea.  

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” 

Henry pulls away to drift over to the bunk, though the hand he reaches out stops when it hits the wooden edge.  Unsure or afraid, though of what Neal can’t be certain. 

“Do you think Pan did this?”

“Honestly?  No, I don’t.  I think it’s just the dagger.  I knew that thing was a nasty piece of work the minute I saw it.”  Feeling too heavy on his feet to want to stand alone, Neal grabs the chair he’d set by the bed, spins it around so he can sit backwards and lean on the back as he watches Henry tentatively take Rumplestiltskin’s hand. 

“He’s cold.” 

“Yeah.  I know. “ 

“He helped me, before.  When mom was stuck back in our land.”  Much as it doesn’t feel like home anymore, it warms something in him that Henry who’s never walked its soil can still call it ‘ours’ with such determination.  “He gave me something to control the nightmares I had after the sleeping curse, and he didn’t ask me for anything, even though he didn’t know about me then.” 

“He never asks for payment from kids.”  Though as payment, he’d _take_ a kid.  Just when Neal felt he’d started to understand, something had to pop up to make his head ache with how much sense his father’s logic tended to not make. 

“Cause they remind him of you?”

 _Shit_.  Neal scrapes at a chipped point on the chair top until he scrapes off a tiny splinter, flicking it out and across the floor.  “I, ah…yeah, could be.  He was really always like that, though.  I mean the first thing he did with the dagger after saving me from the war was to go stop it altogether, send the kids back home.” 

“He really loves you though; I know he does.  I could tell, on the way to New York.  He was so scared you wouldn’t want to talk to him.” 

“He’s scared of a lot of things, Henry.”  True, and yet he couldn’t quite say it with the bitterness he might have managed a few months before.  Scared though he might’ve been, this time, he’d come through.  Everything he’d done from his steps onto the ship to his actions in the clearing showed a level of bravery Bae’d only ever seen the night they burned the castle down.  Desperate measures…

“Dad!”  Henry whirls around fast enough to jerk Neal out of his thoughts, bring him in to focus on the brightness in Henry’s eyes.  “If you’re right and this is just the last of the curse from the dagger, we can wake him up!  I know we can!”

“Yeah?  Something in your book that-“

“True love’s kiss!  It can break _any_ curse; it never fails.” 

For all the hope on Henry’s face, it seems a bizarre moment to remember that he never saw his parents kiss.  Not once.  Rumple tried, kissed Milah’s cheek or the top of her head as she sat by the fire but every time Bae had ever witnessed, she’d turned away.  Maybe it was for the best that she ran after all.  There was no love between them; he had to wonder if there ever had been.  He had only ever seen his father in love once, on the phone, his chest burdened by the weight of dreamshade. 

How to broach the subject of Rumplestiltskin’s state with Belle wasn’t something that had occurred to him yet, not when he was still trying to process it for himself, but she would have to be told, and Henry wasn’t wrong.  For their kind, there was no greater magic than true love.  His pulse danced, though he tried to temper his hopes.  For all he knew, the dagger might be stronger still. 

He smiles for Henry anyway, the corners of his lips melting into something a little more real when Henry grins back at him.  “That’s a great idea, Henry.  I’ve been away from magic so long, I guess sometimes things that might’ve been obvious before just don’t to come to me like they would have.  I’ve never seen it done myself but I know they say it works just about every time; soon as we land I’ll go find Belle and-“

“But you don’t have to wait for that!” Henry joins him at his chair, hands gesturing half aimlessly for a minute before he rests them between Neal’s on the wooden frame.  “It was before you knew us, but when mom broke the curse, it was because I had taken a sleeping curse to save her and she kissed me, and it worked, on both curses!  You can do it, dad; you can wake him up yourself!” 

“Oh, Henry, I…”  What the hell could he say?  _I don’t love him?_   God no; he couldn’t say that to his boy and besides, it wasn’t true.  Not by a longshot.  _I don’t love him **enough**?_   Well, did he?  How would he know?  Just a few months ago he’d have been willing enough to deck him one and he certainly wouldn’t have been hoping to go home with him but now…

Now so much had changed, but he couldn’t be sure that mattered.  There was love between them still, but to call it ‘true’? Somehow, that seemed to imply a level of purity they’d left long ago. 

“You love him; I know you do!  He’s your _dad_.”  The dip in Henry’s voice kills him, a waver that punches into his gut because this is something Henry’s thought about, how to love a father who left you behind.   It’s not the same, true, but not matter how many times he whispers that to himself to soothe the ache, the past can’t be erased.  Henry grew up and he wasn’t there, and how many of those days had his boy wished for his father?  How often did he look for his own from his cave in Neverland, long after he swore to himself he’d stopped looking? 

Neal stands a little clumsily, heart hammering in a throat that feels too thick.  “Yeah.  He is.” 

“Please, if you’ll just try-“

“Ok.  Ok.  Just let me-“  It’s easier to kneel by the bunk, both for his weak knees and his frayed nerves.  His fingers seek out his father’s, grasping tighter when he realizes just how right Henry was.  Somehow, he seems colder now than he had minutes before.  In the absence of Neal’s near constant grip, his skin has chilled.  Henry clasps at his shoulder, his hand too small to span the distance the way a man’s would though he tries. 

“You can do this, dad.  You just have to believe.” 

There, Henry never has any trouble.  He’s full of belief, Rumplestiltskin claims to be full of love(and he is, sometimes; Bae has seen it.  Love and violence, and maybe the two always come side by side.  He has seen it in Regina too, even in Emma, even in himself.).  In both of them the power is so strong it all but bleeds from their skin.  Pan, too, burned with belief.  In the midst of all that, where the hell does _he_ fit?  Neal’s never felt particularly full of anything, just a mess of desperation and confusion and an inability to maintain traction.  If he doesn’t let go on his own, whatever he’s holding always manages to slip right through his fingers.  The Darlings, Emma, Tamara, Rumplestiltskin….

Henry’s free hand takes his. 

He means to thank his boy for that, but when he speaks, it’s his father he’s looking at.

“This has to work.  Something does.  You can’t leave yet.  We still need you.”  It’s hard to wrap his mind around that there’s such a thing as a ‘we’ to worry about now, but there is.  There’s him and Henry and yeah, they need him, they always will, and shit, maybe even Emma somewhere down the road can come to love this man he who makes it so easy and so very fucking hard.  Maybe even David and Mary Margaret; maybe now, family is a thing they can have.  For the son of a single father turned orphan, nothing else in his long, long life has ever sounded more like a fairy tale.

He presses the back of Rumplestiltskin’s hand to his lips, holds it there though the drip of a tear slips between them.  He’s not sure whether or not that’ll help his cause or disrupt the magic; he’s working now with magic he’s pretty sure even his father hasn’t tried. 

He gasps, struggles to get a better grip because he won’t lose it in front of Henry, he _won’t_ but-

“Bae?” 

Hell, maybe it doesn’t matter; after all, of all the things he’s thought less of his father for, crying the days before the war almost took him away was never one of them.  He’s hardly sure now though if he’s laughing or crying but it doesn’t _matter_ , because Henry is laughing and Rumplestiltskin’s eyes are open and from here on out they don’t have to look back, not unless they want to. 

Rumplestiltskin’s free hand cards through Neal’s hair, shaky but determined.  “Oh, son…I was sure you hated me after-“

“Yeah, sometimes I did, but if I’d wanted you gone, why the hell would I have cared so much?” 

There is enough time before them for him to say _I love you, I’ve always loved you_ , and he will, but not yet.  For now, this is enough.  He’s a long way from fourteen, too old and still feeling too young to be a father himself, but finally, they start from here. 

 

 

 


End file.
